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The case charging Trump with hoarding classified documents at
his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida had long been seen as legally
perilous for the Republicans' White House nominee, but U.S.
District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed it in July after
concluding that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment to the
job was unlawful.
The ruling brought an abrupt halt to the case, ensuring there
would be no trial before the November presidential election.
Another case brought by Smith, this one charging Trump with
plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was
delayed by a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity on
former presidents.
Smith's team has appealed the documents decision, calling the
ruling by Cannon, who was nominated for the bench by Trump,
contrary to decades of precedent. If allowed to stand,
prosecutors say, the ruling would call into question the
legality of hundreds of appointments across the Executive
Branch.
Trump's team responded with its own filing late Friday, telling
the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to leave
Cannon's ruling in place.
“There is not, and never has been, a basis for Jack Smith’s
unlawful crusade against President Trump. For almost two years,
Smith has operated unlawfully, backed by a largely unscrutinized
blank check drawn on taxpayer dollars,” Trump's lawyers wrote.
They said that Smith "has operated without the type of oversight
and accountability that are hallmarks of inferior officers,”
with a tenure largely up to him and a jurisdiction that exceeds
that of presidentially appointed U.S. attorneys.
In dismissing the case, Cannon asserted that no existing statute
permits the appointment of a special counsel by an attorney
general, though Smith's team has said no fewer than four
authorize it. She also said Smith's appointment was
unconstitutional because he was appointed directly by Attorney
General Merrick Garland and was not confirmed by the Senate.
But other special counsels, including Robert Mueller during the
Trump administration and Robert Hur during the Biden
administration, have been appointed in the same manner as Smith.
Courts rejected challenges to those appointments, Smith's team
has noted.
On Thursday, Trump's lawyers in the 2020 federal election
interference case in Washington adopted the same illegal
appointment argument in urging a judge to dismiss that
prosecution.
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